Art Cashin: Markets 'Fine' If Congress Will 'Stop Helping Us'

U.S. private employers added 42,000 jobs in July, according to a report by ADP Employer Services on Wednesday. What does this mean for the market going forward? Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS Financial Services, shared his insights.

“The fear was that it might show a more dramatic number and when it didn’t, you bought a little time.”

“I’m not sure we postponed all worries until Friday, but we did dodge a bullet," he said, referring to the US government's monthly jobs report, due on Friday.

Cashin also noted an interesting correlation between Congress and the stock market:

“[On Friday,] Congress goes into recess and there’s a study that shows since 1897 to 2004, there’s an annualized gain of 5.3 percent when there’s no Congress in session and an annualized rate of gain of less than 0.5 of a percent when Congress is in session,” he said.